Trimex Medical is a fast-growing wholesale medical, dental, and hospital supplies distributor who competes against large competitors with extensive resources. Trimex relies on efficient management processes in order to compete. These tactics have helped make Trimex a $2 million company with fewer than ten employees.

Due to their large volume, Trimex encounters many of the same obstacles that large medical supply distributors do. Not long ago, the management of Trimex found itself at a crossroads. In order to sustain their competitive position and continue to increase output, they needed to find an effective inventory management system that had the robust functionality their industry required but that wouldn’t break their bank account.

Business Challenges & Needs

The feature needs were essential components of their market. Frequently, the medical supplies industry requires allocation of inventory dispersed into many non-traditional stock locales, including consigned inventory, leased inventory, and inventory sold with RMA tracking detail.

Adding complication, much of the product maintains lot and serial tracking codes. Product liability is detrimental to the success of the company. Knowing exactly what they have and where they have it is fundamental to Trimex’s business model. Instead of resorting to a costly customized solution with these feature sets inclusive, Trimex turned to Fishbowl to implement an effective inventory management system. "Fishbowl had all the feature sets already in place for our company," said one employee. What they found was a solution that was priced at a fraction of an in-house-built solution cost. Additionally, implementing Fishbowl meant that they wouldn’t have to abandon the familiar QuickBooks accounting software, they had come to depend on. Fishbowl’s seamless integration with QuickBooks gave them the advanced functionality of the larger, more expensive software packages normally associated with the medical supplies industry.

The Solution

While evaluating Fishbowl, Trimex felt satisfied with the features sets Fishbowl offers, but they still had to determine if Fishbowl could expand with the growth the company had been experiencing. Not long after, evaluating the software, they determined Fishbowl already possessed many functions that the company would, in time, be able to utilize.

Under a time constraint, Trimex implemented Fishbowl in time for their year-end closeout and went live for the new business year within just a few weeks. Now they have QuickBooks and Fishbowl working in unison to provide the inventory management system with which they can expand.

The Results

Presently, Trimex is specifically impressed with Fishbowl’s ability to detail exact inventory quantities in various modules of the software. "The quantities are accurate and up to date," replies the control manager. After learning Fishbowl process flow, Trimex admits the program is very easy to use. And perhaps most importantly, Fishbowl transfers all the necessary data to their QuickBooks package so that their financials are current without requiring manual re-entry. Invoices, Vendor Bills and accounts are updated automatically so that no more time is spent keeping all applications accurate with congruent data.

Additionally, they commented that it was nice to realize that after implementation Fishbowl was exactly what they had hoped and expected it would be. Trimex Medical absolutely recommends Fishbowl’s management system to companies in the medical supplies industry.